Advertising is a form of communication used to encourage or persuade an audience of viewers, readers or listeners to continue or take some new action. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common. Advertising messages are usually paid for by sponsors and presented via various media platform types including newspaper, magazines, television, radio, outdoor advertising, direct mail, websites, telephone, and text messages.
As consumers engage with a growing number of media platforms, sponsors are increasingly seeking ways to present their advertisements to consumers in a cohesive fashion. However, present efforts to advertise across multiple media platforms have been somewhat haphazard as each media platform is generally operated independently. For example, even though a single company may own and operate both a television network and a radio station, the advertisements presented on the television network and the radio station are generally independent of one another. Thus, although opportunities exist for a single sponsor to present advertising messages on multiple media platforms, efforts to coordinate the content and timing of advertising messages across multiple media platforms have proven difficult.
It would be desirable to provide systems and methods that would allow for synchronizing advertisements across multiple media platforms with which a user may be simultaneously engaged.